In my last article on the phenomenon of e-cigarettes as the long-term savior of the local Jamaican company Carrerras Group of Companies, I pointed out a hidden danger: it’s possible to modify the cartridges to use liquid THC (Tetra Hydro Cannabinol), the extract from Marijuana (Cannabis Sativa) instead of liquid nicotine.

After all, it is a plant with numerous medicinal properties, but only got a bad rap due to its abuse as a narcotic. Yet it is an oft prescribed narcotic for extreme pain, bested only by another drug in the same class of hallucinogenic drugs, Morphine.

It would be best to aid is mass extraction and legitimize its use under Doctor’s advisement i.e. prescription, as with the coming of e-cigarettes from Carrerras Group of Companies, a legitimate Tax complaint Business, to save their fledgling cigarette business, Jamaica may start seeing increases in cases of Marijuana possession cases.

As is now the case, Marijuana (Cannabis Sativa) is an illegal drug and possession of it is a criminal offence. However, its extract THC (Tetra Hydro Cannabinol) is used in the making of Canasol, an eye drop medication based on the plant.

With a plethora of other applications for Marijuana (Cannabis Sativa) aside from its abuse as a drug or religious sacrament by Rastafarians, the Government of Jamaica may be missing the train as it relates to monetary gains from its extracts. Thus a simple suggestion is to maintain the possession of Marijuana illegal with the exception of its use as a starting material for the extraction of THC.

This can be easily done by rendering the Marijuana (Cannabis Sativa) in a form that cannot be smoked by pyrolosis i.e. decomposing the plant under a hard vacuum or low pressure of about 1 atm with gentle thermal heat such a radiation focused from sunlight through a vacuum chamber that is constructed of glass. This as THC is a volatile compound and the fumes may overpower the Chemist, thus necessitating this is done in a well ventilated area.

Once in this decomposed organic “soup” from, it can be safely transported to a pharmaceutical company registered with the Government of Jamaica to go through the process of extracting the THC and making it available as a prescription painkiller for hospital usage, but on a larger scale than is currently possible, enabling export to other countries.

This is a far more environmentally friendly way to get rid of Marijuana (Cannabis Sativa) than burning, as the Jamaican Constabulary Force aka the Jamaican Police are prone to do. Granted, the above would require legislative and regulatory framework to achieve and consultation with the Government of the United States of America.

In short legalize the extract THC (Tetra Hydro Cannabinol) for medicinal use as a prescription pain killer but maintain the illegality of Marijuana (Cannabis Sativa). The leftover organic material from the extraction process can be used to make Bio-Fuel for Motor Vehicles, slated to come to Jamaica in significant numbers in the First Quarter of 2012AD. After that the possibilities are Limitless (2011).

Signs now appear that the Senator Mike Henry, Minister of Transport and Worksmay be about to keep his promise and make every Clarendon and Manchester High School Student who attends a Kingston School come to pass in the Fourth Quarter of 2011AD.

Effectively by September 2011AD or further along in the Fourth Quarter of 2011AD, when the new school term begins, these are the intended JRC routes:

1.Kingston to Spanish Town

2.Spanish Town to Linstead

3.Linstead to May Pen

4.May Pen to Scott’s Pass

Thus the JRC is fulfilling the expectations of Scott’s Pass Residents in Manchester and May Pen Residents in Clarendon as to the resumption of Train Service as suggested in the article “Scotts Pass Residents want Train Service”, published Tuesday April 26, 2011 by Nedburn Thaffe, Gleaner Writer,The Jamaica Gleaner.

Also, in a double-dip ice cream treat, the Minister of Transport and Works is considering the extension of the JUTC (Jamaica Urban Transportation Corporation) Municipal Bus service, characterized by those Buses sporting the Jamaican flag colours that traverse Kingston and St. Andrew Municipality to also expand their service to the rural areas, inclusive of Clarendon and Manchester as noted in my blog article entitled “JRC, Scotts Pass and Senator Mike Henry – Molly Wood Keeping up with the Kardashians”.

But it is the introduction of a Freight service to carry goods and produce that may make both the JUTC and the JRC Passenger Railway Train Service profitable. The use of LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) that may make the JUTC and the JRC Passenger Railway Train Service fuel efficient.

This as LNG would reduce their fuel consumption and maintenance costs, being as LNG burns cleaner, has more energy per Kilogram is better for the engine. A cue taken from the People’ Republic of China, who are in the process of making their Public Transport system use LNG being as it is more fuel efficient as stated in my blog article entitled “JUTC, Challenger and LNG - Journey to the Center of the Earth”.

Can travel to Kingston and St. Catherine from Manchester or Clarendon get any better than this, The Fifth Dimension Up, Up and Away style? Christmas looks bright again as the Fourth Quarter of 2011AD approaches………if this promise is kept!

It was really about advancing Google TV, their lackluster IPTV Set-Top Box platform that Hollywood has snubbed, scared off by Google’s lack of guarantee of content infringement protection. Motorola’s expertise in Set-Top Box gear should re-engender trust with Hollywood bigwigs.

This as Google’s Eric Schmidt has announced on Friday August 26th 2011AD at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland that they are launching Google TV in the First Quarter of 2012AD as state in the article “Schmidt says Google TV heading to Europe”, published AUGUST 27, 2011 4:30 PM PDT By Edward Moyer, CNET News - Digital Media.

Please note this is the sanitized news as presented by CNET News Editor Edward Moyer. The REAL source of the News is a lot more bluntly expressed in the Reuters article entitled “UPDATE 2-Google TV to launch in Europe next year” published Friday August 26, 2011 7:31pm EDT By Georgina Prodhan, Reuters. As blunt as was my assertion: Google realizes that Television is just too big an arena to ignore, hence their push towards the EU after the Hollywood blocking content streaming to their Set-Top Boxes.

Telco 2.0/STL Partners analyst Keith McMahon is blunt as the British can get but expresses it best, quote: “If his ambition was to go there and convince the TV people he wasn't a big threat, I don't think he achieved it. The message I got was that TV is such a big market that Google can't ignore it. They're never going to give it up.”.

This forced their partner-in-crime, Logitech, to drop the price of their Set-Top Box, the Logictech Revue to US$99 as stated in the article “Five reasons why you should buy the $99 Google TV”, published August 1, 2011, 3:00pm PT by Janko Roettgers, GigaOM as nobody was buying their Set-Top Box platform with blocked or inaccessible content.

Roku is still the IPTV streaming Set-Top Box darling while Apple’s iTV, a “hobby” of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, is quietly doing testing, only recently discovering, to their surprise, that people prefer to buy programs, even at higher prices as opposed to renting them for US$0.99 as per the article “Apple cancels iTunes TV rentals” published August 26, 2011, 2:40pm PT By Erica Ogg, GigaOM.

Please note that these are not the only IPTV Streaming Set-Top Boxes, just the most profilic of the lot. This as the profit margins are better for streaming than regular Pay TV, as per the statistics of Strategy Analytics as shown below when Video on Demand (Pay-TV) is compared to Broadband Services offered by these Triple Play Providers:

Thus Silicon Valley, despite their technical prowess is very much in the dark as to what customers want. Meanwhile Television’s future among the Triple Play Providers both in the US of A and Jamaica appears to be increasing tied to Broadband Internet as stated in the article Forget TV — broadband is the future of cable, published August 26, 2011, 10:40am PT By Ryan Lawler, GigaOM.

Prognosis to the Triple Play Providers: Follow the example of Triple Play Provider ComCast 1GBps XFinity and Triple Play Provider FLOW 300MBps upgrade coming this Fourth Quarter of 2011AD and adopt a IPTV Streaming Platform strategy to counter the growing threat of IPTV. Free-to-Air Broadcasters both American and Jamaican need to go DVB-H urgently as well, inclusive of interactive Red Button Service to make Television more like Radio as per my blog articleentitled “Traditional News Media vs Broadband Telecoms - GigaOM's Avoiding ELE After Deep Impact”.

Good to note it’s NOT my idea; I merely added to it by suggesting partnering graduate student Sang-Woo Kim from the Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea to develop his technology of using ambient noise as the power source, as the environment has a lot of Sound Energy generated, which is analogous to Heat Exchangers in an Industrial plant using waste heat to do other work.

Thus I decided to pen a short note to highlight various Technological innovations to reuse Wasted Sound, Kinetic, Solar, Radiation and Chemical Energy to achieve the dream of every Telecoms and Power Technician: Recycling Wasted Energy!

Friday, August 26, 2011

DARPA’s HTV-2 vehicle successfully hit Mach 20 for three (3) minutes based on nine (9) minutes of Telemetry data received from the craft as designed based on the report in the article “DARPA releases video of HTV-2 hypersonic glider flight”, published August 25, 2011 By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press, PhysOrg.

Hopefully too, DARPA may focus the Research towards the Design of a Extra-solar Vehicle fit for space travel as per their recent grant of US$500,000 to breathe life into the 100 Year Starship Study co-sponsored by NASA (National Aeronautical Space Administration) by November 11th 2011AD as stated in the article “DARPA offering $500,000 grant in November to fund Starship research”, published AUGUST 18, 2011 by JEFF HUGHES, DigitalTrends

Director Regina Dugan has declared thus: “According to a preliminary review of the data collected prior to the anomaly encountered by the HTV-2 during its second test flight.HTV-2 demonstrated stable aerodynamically controlled Mach 20 hypersonic flight for approximately three minutes. It appears that the engineering changes put into place following the vehicle’s first flight test in April 2010 were effective. We do not yet know the cause of the anomaly for Flight 2.”

I suggested the use of a Laser-based communication system coupled with IBM Watson and its Natural Language capabilities to ease controls of the test vehicle in flight. I knew prior to the Second Test vehicle being launched, the problems that cause the first failure had been addressed in HTV-2’s design, namely by:

1.Adjusting center of gravity

2.Decreasing the angle of attack flown

3.Using the onboard reaction control systems to augment vehicle flaps

Air Force Major Dr. Chris Schulz, DARPA HTV-2 Program Manager in the article “TEST FLIGHT #2 a SUCCESS for DARPA’s Falcon HTV-2”, published August 21 2011 by Greg in SD stated thus, quote: “We’ve confirmed that the HTV-2 made impact with the Pacific Ocean along its flight trajectory as planned in the event of an anomaly. This flight safety system is a significant engineering advance in that the system prompts a vehicle to monitor the parameters under which it is operating and exercise safety protocols completely autonomously should those parameters be breached.”

Thus far, it is a SERIOUS technical achievement to even be able to communicate at those speeds. A controlled landing instead of a splash down would be a history making event, as it would herald the dawn of Hypersonic Flight, piloted by AI!